


On My Mind

by Pholo



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, I think that's the most applicable tag??, Mind Meld, Nureyev: 'I submit myself to the ordeal of being known', Nureyev: 'noT LIKE THAT', Other, Pill:, Temporary Character Death, WAIT COME BACK I SAID TEMPORARY, laser blast wound, mindreading, space protein bars, the martian pill, vague allusions to a heist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23123143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pholo/pseuds/Pholo
Summary: Juno rips off the bandaid: “I can still sense your thoughts sometimes. Feel what you feel or—or taste what you taste. It’s like Miasma blurred the line between our minds and now…” He shrugs helplessly. “It’s not like a voluntary thing. Maybe there’s some way for me to stop, but I don’t know how, and…that’s part of why I didn’t tell you sooner, because I don’t know how to fix this. I want you to be able to trust me, but I…”He can’t go on. The actual sensation has left him, but Juno can tell Nureyev’s horror well enough from the look on his face.“What do you know?” he asks.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 59
Kudos: 682





	On My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr seemed to like this concept, so...here ya' go!

It doesn’t happen often. Not enough for Juno to worry—not at first.

He’s scrounging around his kitchen for a clean fork on a Tuesday night when he suddenly tastes wine— _good_ wine, the sort you’d find at a Kanagawa launch party. Once as he scrunches a new wad of paper under the too-short leg of his desk he thinks, apropos of nothing, _the fire escape on the third floor._ Another time he blinks and for a split second, he sees an origami frog on a metal table.

It’s…strange. But Juno has a rule about the uncomfortable parts of himself: If he can’t make fun of them, he escorts them to the back of his mind and shoots them like a rancher with a rabid dog. Fragmented visions and sensations that appear at random and with perfect clarity…well. They don’t exactly make for great standup material.

So—sue him. Juno doesn’t think too hard about Sarah, and he doesn’t think too hard about Benten, and he doesn’t think too hard about how some nights he’ll wake up at too-tired-to-check-the-time-on-his-comms o’clock with spots of fantom pain all along his arms and feet. Life’s already too damn complicated.

Then he has the Hanatoba operation, and overrides the THEIA soul. Juno gives himself a couple of weeks of leeway as his bones knit back together, and then he promises he’ll face this…problem of his. To get better, he needs to clean out his mental closets.

He’s only on the first stage of that process when he arrives on the Carte Blanche. Two nights after the Zolatovna heist, he has a flash of pain right as Nureyev says, “Hrng.”

Juno grabs his wrist. He looks up as Nureyev claps his mug onto the counter, then thrusts his own wrist under the kitchen tap.

“Okay?” Juno asks, more dazed than concerned.

“Fine,” Nureyev says. “It’s only hot water.”

Juno already knew that much. The pain has receded to a low prickle, but he recognizes the sting for all the times he’s spilled coffee on himself. Juno sees Nureyev’s scars, concealer partly displaced by the rush of tap water, and feels sick.

The spots are a perfect match for Juno’s fantom pains.

He stands on wobbly legs and wanders out of the kitchen.

“You don’t want your coffee?” Nureyev calls after him.

Juno stops before he can turn away down the hall. It doesn’t feel right to leave his coffee now, so he pivots. He feels a bit like a lost sheep where he finds his old spot at the table, grabs his mug, and says,

“…Yeah.”

He trips on his own feet on his way back out to the hall. Nureyev snorts—and Juno hears, with all the closeness of his own thoughts, _God, I love him._

Juno has to take a long time to lie down after that. His coffee goes cold on his bedside table. He rearranges the wrinkles on his bedspread with absent fingers and pretends he hasn’t spent the better half of a year with one foot in Peter Nureyev’s brain. Because that’s what the flashes are—he’s sure now. Glimpses of Nureyev’s life.

…That, and _God, I love him._ Forget supernatural tomfuckery; those four words alone are enough to tear Juno apart on a subatomic level.

One revelation at a time, though. It’s easier for Juno to confront the supernatural than his and Nureyev’s edge-of-a-relationship.

Somehow he’s still hooked onto Nureyev’s subconscious mind. Maybe Juno shouldn’t be surprised. There was a time underground when Miasma pushed him so hard he spent more of his day inside Nureyev’s head than his own. By the end of that whole sordid affair—between the cards and the flashbacks—Juno could sleepwalk the path between his mind and Nureyev’s. It was less of a psychic link and more of a psychic rut, like a trail worn down by generations of footprints. Up and back, up and back, until the boundary between Juno and Nureyev’s minds was as substantial as a line of tape on the floor—a parody of separation at best. It stands to reason that even after the pill was gone, some part of Juno’s mind would never truly forget the way.

So, he’s identified the problem. What’s the solution? Can Juno turn this power off? Can he ever restore the wall between his mind and Nureyev’s?

Juno rolls onto his back. He drapes one arm over his chest, and props the other hand against the wall beside his bed like some kind of brace. He _really_ doesn’t want to talk to Nureyev. What would he even say? _Hey, Nureyev—not to freak you out or anything, but I’ve been getting flashes of your thoughts and feelings for the past year and I’m not sure there’s a way for me to stop._

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Juno rolls back over onto his side and takes a swig of cold coffee. It’s gonna’ suck, but he can do this. Juno’s turned over a new leaf. New Juno can talk to people. New Juno doesn’t hide from his problems. In fact, New Juno will get out of bed right now, march down to the kitchen, and tell Nureyev about his spooky psychic powers.

Right now.

He’ll go…right now.

Right…now.

Juno wiggles his toes, testing the give of his old socks. He clicks his teeth together.

“ _Fuck._ ”

Juno needs a pep talk. Or, he needs to ask Rita for a pep talk. But Juno doesn’t want to rely on Rita so much these days. It’s an odd balance, their friendship—a tightrope walk between support and dependency. As Juno’s social circle widens, he’s started to become aware of how often Rita has propped him up, and how few times he’s returned the favor. He’s not sure how to approach the fact besides maybe giving Rita some space—outsourcing his problems to other friends for a while.

So—Juno stalls. He waits for the courage to ask someone else for advice, or confront Nureyev, or do _something_ other than sit around and worry a hole through his brain. In the meantime, he gets more snatches of Nureyev’s mind. The blue square of a comms screen, or a packed dresser drawer, or a piece of lint on the arm of the lounge couch. He tastes a protein bar, or some strange spice he can’t name. More than once Juno is struck by an emotion he knows does not belong to him.

The burn pains are worse at night. Juno can feel Nureyev the strongest then, when sleep bares his mind wide open. Memories mingle with flashes of fear.

 _It’s okay,_ Juno thinks as loudly as he can. He’s propped up on his bed, unable to sleep for all of Nureyev’s anxiety. _It’s okay. I’m not gonna’ let anyone touch you. It’s okay…_

The violin wail of anxiety winds down to a low thrum after that—something soft and achy. It feels like yearning.

Juno repositions his arm under his pillow and fights back the sudden urge to cry.

There’s an ugly part of Juno that doesn’t want to give up the ability to eavesdrop on Nureyev’s thoughts. It’s the shame of the fact that finally drives Juno to approach Nureyev.

It’s a slow night on the Carte Blanche. With so much empty space between them and their next heist, there’s not much for the crew to do but laze around. Juno feels the give of a cushion and knows he’ll find Nureyev on the lounge couch.

Nureyev looks up from his comms when Juno enters. His glasses are a bit lopsided on his nose, and he has his bare feet tucked into the gap between the couch cushions. “Oh,” he says. “Have you finally come to tell me what’s wrong?”

Juno stops. “Um. What?”

Nureyev shrugs. The neck of his shirt is wide enough that the fabric has started to slip down one shoulder. “Every time we’ve crossed paths over the past week you’ve buttoned up your coat.”

“Buttoned up my—what does that have to do with anything?”

“You fiddle with your coat when you’re anxious.”

“I do not _fiddle_ —” Juno falters. He extracts his fingers from his lapels. “Okay, yeah, fine—you caught me. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to ask, but. Could we talk?”

Nureyev leans forward—reaches over his bent knees to pat the empty couch cushions. Juno crosses to the couch and sits down. He makes two fists, then presses the knuckles down against his thighs.

When he takes too long to start, Nureyev says, “I hope I haven’t…done something. To upset you.”

Juno tenses. “What? No! No, of course not. It’s me. I…” he pauses. Scratches his cheek. “I’ve uh.”

Nureyev doesn’t prod him. How he still has the patience to sit there and wait for Juno to _use his words_ , Juno can’t begin to guess. He remembers _God, I love him_ and can’t help but fear this confession will change the fact. He doesn’t want to deliver the death blow to whatever tiny part of Nureyev still holds a candle for Juno Steel.

But he doesn’t have a choice. Juno opens his mouth and says, “I can still—”

“Oh wow! You got my message already? You sure are fast, boss!”

Juno starts. He looks back at the doorway, where Rita has her hands planted on either side of the frame.

“You decided whether ya’ want popcorn?” she asks.

Juno feels his eye narrow. “You…I mean. No?”

Rita turns to Nureyev. “Mista Ransom?”

“Popcorn would be lovely, Rita,” Nureyev says, bemused but not opposed.

“Well, you two sit nice and tight while I go rustle up our snacks!” Rita declares. She uses her palms to push back onto her heels, then swivels and dashes away down the hall like a puppy after a ball. “And don’t you start the stream before I get back or we will have WORDS!”

Juno stares after her. There’s a beep as Nureyev taps open his comms, then a pause, presumably while he loads his message app.

Then he says, “Ah.”

Nureyev shows Juno his comms screen. Rita’s group message reads,

**_STREAM NIGHT!!! LOUNGE!!! RIGHT!!!! NOW!!!!!!_ **

Juno has to shield his eye. “She never did tell me how she makes her texts sparkle like that…”

“The fewer people in the galaxy who know how to use that effect, the better our species' chance of survival,” Nureyev muses. He closes his comms. “We’ll talk after the film?”

“Sure,” Juno says. Then, because that sounds dismissive somehow, “Yeah, of course.”

So they settle down for a family stream night. It’s Jet’s turn to pick the stream, which means one of the classics—the kind of nostalgic, slow film an old man might put on to will himself back to sleep. Because the universe has a vendetta against him, Juno ends up squashed between Rita and Nureyev on the couch. He’s only vaguely aware of the film, much more preoccupied with the tiny strip of almost-contact where his and Nureyev’s thighs brush. Over the course of a long diner scene, he gathers his courage to feign a stretch—this accomplished, he settles back against the couch with his legs spread one degree wider, enough to feel the press of Nureyev’s thigh against his own.

That was supposed to be all. Juno would memorize this one line of connection, and that’s all he’d need. Or, all he’d allow himself to take from a man he’s already stolen so much from.

But then a weight meets Juno’s shoulder, hesitant like a bird at a new feeder.

Juno can barely look. He’s scared the scene will disappear if he draws too much attention to it—like a shadow at the corner of your eye that, at closer inspection, reveals itself to be something unremarkable like a lamp or a coat hanger. But when Juno plucks up the courage to peek, Nureyev doesn’t disappear. The scene doesn’t resolve itself into something less than miraculous. Nureyev sits there, head tilted to rest on Juno’s shoulder and strung up tight like a spring.

Juno doesn’t make a sound. He fills his lungs with painful slowness, as though the motion of his chest will buck Nureyev from his shoulder. He feels his fingers tremble where he has his arms crossed over his middle.

When he meets no resistance, Nureyev starts to sink down against Juno’s side. His head comes to rest more firmly on his shoulder. He turns on the couch, tucking one leg under the other, and uses one hand to bunch the blankets up under his chin.

It would be so easy, for Juno to prop his head atop Nureyev’s. Maybe he should, to broadcast his approval. That the desire to be close is reciprocated. But he doesn't want to come off too strongly…

The stream grinds on. Rita’s commentary dies down as she too succumbs to the pull of the couch. Juno finds his other side occupied by a warm—albeit much shorter—weight. This at least is familiar. Juno wraps an arm around Rita’s shoulders and feels a sudden tug at his chest for their old office, and all the nights they spent huddled under a mountain range of ratty blankets and snack food.

With his mind a million lightyears away, Juno’s body moves without his permission. Like a condemnation, Juno’s head comes to rest against Nureyev’s on his shoulder.

The ship doesn’t explode. Nureyev doesn’t even stir. Juno focuses, and over the rumble of the stream he can hear the faintest whistle of breath past parted teeth. Nureyev’s body is totally lax now, his hair tickling Juno’s chin. Warmth fills Juno’s chest like a sunrise. He lets the press of Nureyev and Rita’s bodies ground him, the stream a lullaby of white noise as his eye slips closed.

Juno is underground, and someone is screaming.

He’s never been much of a lucid dreamer, but tonight Juno knows he’s asleep. The fact does nothing to curb the panic that crashes between his ribs. He tears down the hall of Miasma’s lair, towards the twin rooms—one with a chair and an elaborate computer setup, and the other…

Well. Juno never got to see the other room. From his visits to Nureyev’s brain, he could make out a ceiling littered with riverbed cracks—sometimes the masked face of an assistant, or the smell of burned flesh. The pain came as an overlay of his own, a feedback loop that defied sense and time. Needles through his wrists and feet—hot shrapnel ground behind his right eye; a headache like a sonic weapon between his ears. The sense memory alone is enough to make bile rise in his throat, but Juno doesn’t slow. He races straight for the epicenter of agony.

A door appears at the end of the next bend. It’s unlocked. Juno throws it open. Fluorescents hit him like a physical blow; past the glare he can make out two assistants bent over a metal table. He’s on them before they can move. Something hot and metal clatters as Juno slams an assistant to the floor. She goes down with a strange weight to her, like a gunnysack full of rocks. She's vanished by the time Juno has taken out her partner.

It doesn’t matter. They’re both dispatched. Juno rushes to the table.

Nureyev’s eyes are squeezed shut, his breaths wet and rapid-fire. There are tears on his face, one drop poised to slip off his jawline. Juno doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone shake so hard. If only to hold him together, Juno grasps Nureyev’s hand.

There’s a grasp. Fingers tangle messily through his own. Juno doesn’t look up, thoroughly occupied with the manacle around Nureyev’s wrist.

“How do these come off?” he barks, when no locks or switches make themselves apparent.

Nureyev clings to Juno’s hand with naked desperation. “They don’t.”

“What do you mean they _don’t?_ How the hell did Miasma ever get you back to the cell, then?”

Nureyev doesn’t seem to follow the question. “They don’t. Come off,” he rasps. There are horrible red welts up his forearms—blood around the manacle where Nureyev thrashed against his restraints. Juno knows the damage will be worse around his feet—he doesn’t look, maybe out of cowardice or to spare Nureyev some dignity. The marks on his arms are already enough to make Juno’s throat close up; he can’t trust himself not to fall apart when faced with the full scope of Nureyev’s torture. It was hard enough to process a year ago, when he was barely aware of the world beyond his own pain.

“There's gotta' be a way,” Juno says. He knocks their locked hands a little, and feels sick when Nureyev winces. “Come on, Nureyev—aren’t you always the guy who says that? Who finds a way out?”

Nureyev stretches his head back against the table. He sobs, and the sound rips something out of Juno’s chest. He bends over the table—over Nureyev—and presses their foreheads together. His shadow shields Nureyev from the burn of the fluorescents, the undone edges of his coat falling open over him like a blanket.

Juno’s shit at this sort of thing. He never knows what to say. Yet at this moment the words seem to fall out of him, sure as gravity: “Shhh. It’s okay. This isn’t real. It’s all a dream, okay? You got us out of here a long time ago. We’re hundreds of thousands of lightyears away, safe on an old couch. It’s okay. We’re safe. We’re safe…”

Juno can feel Nureyev’s shuddery breaths on his skin. He swallows loudly, and then the fingers flex against his own. The overheads start to dim. Juno wouldn’t have noticed but for the way the red light fades behind his closed lid.

When Juno opens his eye, he’s back on the Carte Blanche. Nureyev is still slumped against his side, head propped between Juno’s shoulder and the back of the couch. He shifts, and the motion tugs at their joined fingers.

Juno stares down at their hands where they’re nestled together between fabric folds. Someone saw fit to throw a blanket over Juno’s shoulders.

Juno sighs through his nose. He uses his free hand to arrange the blankets tighter around them, then presses a kiss to the knuckle of Nureyev’s thumb.

“So. About…what I needed to tell you.”

They’re on the observation deck, each armed with a pad full of research. When Juno pauses to close the apps on his pad, Nureyev says,

“You’re scaring me, Juno.”

Juno feels his awareness shift—and that’s the worst part. He knows Nureyev’s telling the truth. He can sense an echo of his anxiety, a pressure at the back of his throat that makes his teeth ache.

Juno rips off the bandaid: “I can still sense your thoughts sometimes. Feel what you feel or—or taste what you taste. It’s like Miasma blurred the line between our minds and now…” He shrugs helplessly. “It’s not like a voluntary thing. Maybe there’s some way for me to stop, but I don’t know how, and…that’s part of why I didn’t tell you sooner, because I don’t know how to fix this. I want you to be able to trust me, but I…”

He can’t go on. The actual sensation has left him, but Juno can tell Nureyev’s horror well enough from the look on his face.

“What do you know?” he asks.

Juno grips the edge of his pad hard enough to hurt. “You eat a lot of protein bars. You saw the Kalygodt meteor shower last summer. It calms you down, to run your thumb up and back over the handle of your pocket knife; you’ve worn the logo off.” He steels himself. “You still dream about the tomb.”

Nureyev’s eyes are closed now. There’s something defeated in the slump of his shoulders. He’s never let Juno see him like this before. “So that was you, last night.”

There’s no good way to respond to that. “Yeah.”

“What about you? What do you know about how I…”

Juno doesn’t need to read minds to finish that question. He pulls the words out with a kind of fruitless, surgical precision: “I know you still care about me.”

Hot coals catch between them. The heat rises as Nureyev says, “How. Much.”

_God, I love him._

Juno’s lips are glued shut.

Nureyev studies his face. There’s a tense set to his jaw. Then he turns to the observation window. A railing winds all the way around the room; he throws his weight onto the cool metal. Juno flinches. He feels an echo of the sting against his palms.

Nureyev hisses out a slow breath.

“I. Am. Trying,” he says, like a plea. “I am _trying_ to stay. To be vulnerable. Is it so selfish, to want that to be my choice? To be able to _choose_ which parts of myself to give to you, and when?” His grip slips a little on the railing. “I’ve given you everything. My name. My past. My trauma; my trust; my _love_. Is there no tiny piece of myself I’m allowed to keep secret from you? Do I not own any part of myself anymore?”

Juno doesn’t move, though his stomach lurches. He was braced for guilt, but not like this. This is like acid eating through his chest. This is Juno’s oldest fear made tangible: that just by existing, he's hurting the people he loves. He pushes back in a panicked moment of self-preservation: “What, you think I want to be doing this to you?” he snarls. “What do you think it’s like for me to be halfway outside my own head all the time? I feel like I’m going crazy!”

Nureyev’s glare cuts deeper than any plasma knife. “Oh, yes! Forgive me, Juno—clearly I’ve overlooked the real victim in this scenario.”

“I’m just saying, I didn’t choose this either!”

Nureyev’s frown does something funny along the edges. He crunches the toe of one shoe against the metal floor. Then he turns away, back to stare out the window.

“You’re right,” he says at a monotone. “This isn’t your fault. I just…I just hate that I couldn’t _tell_ you. That that was taken from me.”

It starts to dawn on Juno then, that of all the fucked up implications of this situation, Nureyev is most hung up on the fact that Juno knows he’s still in love with him.

Juno wishes he could’ve told him, too. Wishes they could’ve sat there together at the kitchen table, yesterday or a year from now, and Nureyev could’ve told Juno he loved him—and maybe by that point Juno would have suspected. But the confirmation would’ve untangled that knot of doubt around his heart. And they could’ve kissed, or held each other, or simply sat there, warm in each other’s company and secure in their knowledge of reciprocation.

That fantasy is lost to them now. What should be a moment of elation has been reduced to something dark and wretched. Juno doesn’t feel defensive anymore, or angry, or scared. He just feels tired. So, so tired.

“I need to catch up on my research,” Nureyev says at last, with a tone that says he feels the same way. He peels himself from the railing.

Juno lets him go. He tastes blood, and finds he’s bitten through the skin of his bottom lip.

Juno has been stunned before—plenty of times. He’s sprained an ankle on a rooftop chase. He’s been punched, both by exes and perps. Stabbed. And, on one very memorable occasion back at the HCPD, shot. Just once. Made one too many snide remarks and got a laser to the chest for his trouble.

It’s not the sort of thing you can rate on a pain scale—a laser blast. It’s…white. The color of the center of an explosion. Hot, like a house fire under your skin. Even after the laser past through him, Juno remembers the sensation of pressure, as though someone had stabbed him through the chest with a branding iron and just left it there. He remembers the smell of burned muscle and sinew. He remembers how he couldn’t see for the pain.

It had been a long day, is the point. The hospital had patched Juno up well enough. The mind forces the body to forget the worst of any given pain, if only to ensure a person’s not too scared to ever leave their house again.

But the moment Juno feels that pain, he knows. It doesn’t matter that he’s in the middle of a packed dining hall, or that he hadn’t heard laserfire. He’s been shot. In a vague way he feels the wine glass slip out between his fingers. He hits the floor with the glass, crumpled like a discarded piece of laundry. He doesn’t have the air to scream. His fingers claw at his chest. There are shocked sounds from the other party guests; Buddy’s voice sounds close where she talks at him, but Juno can’t make out the words. He can feel the flesh all through his chest burn—the nerves and the muscle scorched through with a bullet made of fire.

Then, with the same sudden shock, the pain fades. Juno wrenches a breath down his throat. He can still feel the burn, but only as a dull ache. It’s how a sound wave might feel underwater—an echo of a cry.

“Juno.” Juno can hear Buddy now. She’s crouched before him on the ground. One hand grasps Juno’s arm. “ _Juno._ You need to tell me where—”

“Shot,” Juno grits out. Glass crinkles where the guests shift around the scene. “Ransom’s been…”

Buddy barely has a second to react. Her comms ring, and then she turns to snatch them from her purse. She answers.

“I know,” she says after a couple of seconds. “Have you called Vespa?” Another pause. “Jet. Get Ransom to the med bay. Juno and I will meet you there shortly.”

She’s used his real name, but there’s hardly a point by now. The heist was thoroughly ruined the moment Juno hit the ground. Buddy snaps her comms closed. “Darling, can you walk?”

Juno’s not sure. The pain has started to flare up and back now, like he’s a radio with a faulty receiver. He clutches his head and nods once. It’s enough for Buddy to loop her arm through his; she helps him clamber to his feet. Blood trails down Buddy’s legs where she crouched on the broken glass; a guest asks whether they need an ambulance. Buddy spares them some excuse about “an episode” and steers Juno away towards the front hall.

Amidst the cyclone of pain and horror, a thought occurs to Juno, crystalline in its deliberateness:

_I love you, Juno._

“No,” Juno says aloud. “No, Peter, don’t you fucking dare.”

And that’s when Nureyev starts to flicker out.

It occurs to Juno that he made a mistake before. He’d assumed he was only a visitor to Nureyev’s mind. That he crossed over to his headspace at random. It’s only now, as Nureyev begins to die, that Juno understands there was never a separate headspace at all. The only thing that ever fluctuated was Juno’s awareness of the fact.

Juno can feel his body start to shut down as he panics. He reaches out with his whole mind and embraces Nureyev’s presence. Lets Buddy be his real-world guide and focuses on reassurance. Every scrap of love he feels for Nureyev, every word of comfort he knows, he shrouds around them like a great golden cocoon.

 _Don’t you leave me_ , he begs. _You gotta’ promise me, Nureyev. Come on, come on, come on…_

“Juno,” Buddy barks. Juno hadn’t realized he’d closed his eye; he snaps the lid open long enough for him and Buddy to clatter down the marble steps to the foyer. The doorman, busy with his comms, whips around as they push past the double doors.

“Are you—” he asks, the rest of the question cut off where the doors clap shut. Buddy tugs Juno along towards the team rendezvous point.

The weight of Juno’s subconscious lifts with Nureyev’s grasp on life. His presence trickles away like sand from an hourglass. Juno makes a pained noise at the loss. “No, no, no, no, no…”

Past the pain, Juno feels a thrum of heat, sweet as sunshine—and so terribly, terribly weak. It’s the distant sensation of a body pressed against his own. Juno feels the tickle of fabric on his cheek—his own coat. The rumble of last night’s stream underlines the scene. Juno feels a sense of peace, bright and soft like the center of a peony as Nureyev snuggles closer to Juno’s side.

In that moment, Nureyev _belongs_.

 _Thank you._ It’s barely a suggestion of a thought; the whisper of wind through dead leaves.

Then Juno is alone.

Juno likes to pretend he’s “not much of a sobber.” It’s a dangerous thing, to cry—proof that Juno still cares enough about the world to be _hurt_. Sarah had taught him not to be so blatantly weak, and the world away from home had only served to reinforce that lesson.

But once the waterworks start, he can never seem to make them stop.

Nureyev had died. His heart had stopped. Juno had reached for his mind, and only felt the walls of his own skull. Then Vespa’s chest compressions had kickstarted his heart, and a flame had sprung up at the back of Juno’s head. He’d deflated into a plastic med bay chair and buried his face in his hands, crying from a combination of terror and sheer, world-stopping relief.

It has to have been twenty minutes since then. Rita hasn’t stopped rubbing circles into his back. So much for giving her a break from his problems. Juno hardly has the mental space to be ashamed as he accepts another tissue.

Juno had lost him. It hadn’t been a close call. Nureyev had disappeared right out from under him. He might as well have died in his arms.

“He’s gonna’ be just fine, Mista Steel,” Rita reassures him. She’s been doing this the whole time too—cooing at him like he’s some lost kid at a carnival. It’s way more comforting than it has any right to be. “Miss Vespa said he’s lost a lotta’ blood, but she’s patched him right up and he’ll be good as new real soon, okay?”

Juno feels his fingers ache where he tangles them through his hair. He lets out a congested sigh. “Thanks, Rita,” he squeezes out. His throat feels smaller than the head of a pin. “God. I can’t remember the last time I was that scared…”

There’s a crinkle of foil. Juno frowns as Vespa shoves a protein bar under his nose—the kind Nureyev sneaks between meals.

“You haven’t eaten breakfast,” she growls. When Juno doesn’t respond, she shakes the bar a bit. “What, do you want to pass out from low blood sugar? Take the damn bar already.”

It’s the closest Vespa can get to words of comfort, Juno realizes. He feels a prickle of surprise peek past the veil of exhaustion. He takes the protein bar with a mumbled thanks. Vespa snorts and returns to her side of the room, like a stray cat who can’t decide whether they want to be petted.

Juno unwraps the bar with some difficulty; his fingers are weak, and slip on the foil package. Once opened, he gestures to Rita with the bar. Rita smiles. She takes the bar, breaks off a chunk for herself, then passes the rest back to Juno.

The two sit and nibble together as Nureyev sleeps on his med bay cot. Juno can feel him at the edges of his mind like a patch of sunlight on a dark floor. He does his best to lend his strength to the sunbeam.

_Juno._

It’s not even a thought—more like the brush of fingers on Juno’s cheek.

Juno feels his brow furrow. There’s a light pressure on his head. As Juno wakes, real fingers comb through his hair.

Juno bites back a groan; his back aches. He’d fallen asleep in another one of those plastic chairs, crossed arms planted on Nureyev’s cot to pillow his head.

It’s a bit of a challenge to make out Nureyev from this angle, but Juno doesn’t want to shake off his fingers. He drinks in his sideways view of Nureyev where he sags against his pillows, head lolled onto one shoulder, face still too pale under the med bay lights. He lays there patiently as Juno grapples for something to say.

“Hey,” he settles on at last.

A tiny smile tugs as Nureyev’s lips. “Hey,” he parrots, voice small.

Juno’s shoulders slump with a long, shaky exhale. Nureyev's fingers comb another pattern through his hair. He could fall right back asleep like this, achy back and all. 

“How do you feel?” he whispers.

“…Fuzzy,” Nureyev says at length. He winces. “Though…perhaps not fuzzy enough.”

“Want me to go get Vespa?”

“Hmm? Oh. No.”

“Okay.” For some reason Juno’s eye is wet again. He sniffs, then laughs a little. “You look really out of it.”

Nureyev’s hand trails down from the top of his head. He cups his palm over Juno’s ear and fans out his fingers.

“I could feel how much I scared you,” he says, out of nowhere. “I’m sorry. For that, and…for the way I reacted, when you told me. About our…” He seems to search for the right word. Before he can find one, Juno says,

“Yeah, well. I’m sorry I snapped at you. You had every right to be mad.”

Nureyev tilts his head back on his pillow. The bandages rise and fall with his chest. Juno tampers the urge to reach up and touch them. “It’s not your fault,” Nureyev repeats, with the kind of finality that weighs on Juno’s shoulders. “I shouldn't have lashed out at you like that. We can still make this work, Juno. And anyway…I like that I can sense you, now that I know where to look. Wherever I go.”

Juno barely restrains a scoff. It sounds like he’s choked on his own spit. “What, like. For real? You _like_ that?”

Nureyev shuffles his shoulders down against the pillows, enough to get a more level look at Juno. “I’ve been alone for a long time,” he says. “It’s…like nothing I’ve ever felt, to be this close to another person.” A pause. “I want my privacy. And I want this bond with you. I’m sure we can achieve both, with practice.”

“A balance, you mean?” Juno can hear his own pulse where his ear rests atop his wrist. The hand on his other ear migrates down to his cheek; Juno can’t restrain a shudder.

“You don’t think we could find one?” Nureyev asks.

“I don’t know. This whole time I’ve been kind of running away from…whatever this is. I don’t know what would happen if I really, uh. Focused on it?” He swallows. “What if I try and there’s no way to make a boundary?”

Nureyev makes a “pshh” sound that Juno’s never heard before. “It’s you,” he says matter-of-factly. “We’ll figure it out.”

And now Juno’s _really_ going to cry. He shoots Nureyev what he knows will be a watery smile, and catches the hand on his cheek. Nureyev’s fingers give the barest squeeze.

“You’re about to pass out,” Juno points out, his voice thick with affection.

Nureyev makes a sleepy noise of protest, his eyes already half-closed. “Where are my glasses?”

“Side table. Jet grabbed them.”

“Oh. Good.”

Juno gives himself to the count of five to gather his courage. Then he leans up and presses his lips to Nureyev’s forehead. He lets the kiss sit for a while. Then he draws back.

Nureyev blinks up at him muzzily. The look on his face makes Juno’s heart beat double-time. Juno tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. He thinks, _I love you too_ , and says, “Go back to sleep, Nureyev.”

Nureyev snorts, and his smile widens. His presence in Juno’s mind feels like an embrace.

The sensation doesn’t lessen when he drifts off.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [Jitterbug-juno!](https://jitterbug-juno.tumblr.com/) I'm terrible at replying to comments, but I promise I always read them and HOLY CRAP, they give me so much happiness! <3


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